WASHINGTON\/CAIRO, May 29 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said he would make a final decision on Friday over a deal with Iran to extend their \u200cceasefire that would need to include opening the Strait of Hormuz and dismantling Tehran’s capacity to make a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n
“I will be meeting now, in the Situation Room, to make a final determination,” he said, referring to the White House’s nerve centre for monitoring global crises.<\/p>\n
Sources had said a deal was in the offing to extend a truce in place since \u200bearly April for another 60 days to allow oil and gas shipments to resume through the strategic waterway while negotiators tackle tricky issues such \u200bas Iran’s nuclear program.<\/p>\n
“Iran must agree that they will never have a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb. The Hormuz Strait \u2060must be immediately open, no tolls, for unrestricted shipping traffic, in both directions,” Trump said, adding that nuclear material would be “unearthed” by the U.S.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Iran’s top negotiator \u200bMohammad Baqer Qalibaf had sounded sceptical.<\/p>\n
“We do not trust guarantees and words, only actions are the criterion. No action will be taken before the other side acts,” \u200bQalibaf said in a social media post, without elaborating.<\/p>\n
“The winner of any agreement is the one who is better prepared for war the day after.”<\/p>\n
Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency, citing sources, said there was a “mixture of truth and falsehood” in Trump’s comments which were an “attempt to portray a fabricated victory.”<\/p>\n
After the U.S. lifts its blockade on Iranian ships, \u200bthe strait would be reopened under Tehran’s arrangements, Fars said.<\/p>\n
There was no provision to destroy nuclear materials in the sides’ Memorandum of Understanding, the \u200bagency said, though there was agreement to release $12 billion from Iran’s frozen assets.<\/p>\n
THOUSANDS DEAD, GLOBAL ECONOMY SUFFERING<\/p>\n
The war launched by the U.S. and Israel on February 28 has killed thousands \u200cof people, \u2060mainly in Iran and Lebanon, and caused global economic pain by pushing up energy prices due to Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
Oil prices fell LCOc1 and stocks rose on Friday over the potential deal.<\/p>\n
In his post on Truth Social, Trump said mines would be removed from the strait and ships trapped there may start to go home: “Say HELLO to your wives, husbands, parents, and families from me, your favorite President!”<\/p>\n
He added that no money would be \u200bexchanged “until further notice” – a possible reference to \u200bIran’s demands for toll payments in \u2060the strait, war damage reparations or a release of Iranian funds frozen abroad.<\/p>\n
Kazakhstan has signalled it is willing to take Tehran’s stockpile of uranium enriched close to weapons-grade levels if the U.S. reaches a deal with Iran, the head \u200bof the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, told the Financial Times.<\/p>\n
Kazakhstan hosts an internationally controlled bank of low-enriched uranium \u200bto ensure fuel \u2060supplies for power stations in International Atomic Energy Agency member states.<\/p>\n
In further diplomatic movement, the foreign minister of mediator Pakistan, Ishaq Dar, arrived in Washington on Friday for talks with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.<\/p>\n
Iran also wants sanctions lifted, U.S. forces withdrawn from the region, and for any peace deal also to end U.S. ally Israel’s \u2060offensive in \u200bLebanon.<\/p>\n
Israel has displaced hundreds of thousands of people with a push deep into Lebanon in \u200bpursuit of Iran’s main ally, the Hezbollah group.<\/p>\n
Israeli strikes have pummelled Lebanon’s south and east plus its capital Beirut, killing more than 3,200 people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.<\/p>\n
Israel says 23 \u200bof its soldiers and four civilians have been killed over the same period.<\/p>\n
Reporting by Reuters’ bureaux; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Sanjeev Miglani<\/p>\n
Disclaimer:\u00a0The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and\/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON\/CAIRO, May 29 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said he would make a final decision on Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[8326,8319,2670,8322,8318,7088,8321,8320,2218,266,8310,102,8325,281,8309,8327,1604,8328,8317,8313,8314,8312,8315,81,8316,8324,8329,8311,101,8323,3445],"class_list":["post-137447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-strait-of-hormuz","tag-bank-forecasts","tag-bitcoin-news","tag-central-banks","tag-charts","tag-crypto-news","tag-currency","tag-economic-reports","tag-ethereum-news","tag-forecasts","tag-global-economy","tag-gold","tag-hormuz","tag-international-policy","tag-interviews","tag-kitco-news","tag-market-nugget","tag-metals","tag-mining-minutes","tag-mining-news","tag-palladium","tag-pgm","tag-platinum","tag-platinum-group-metals","tag-politics","tag-precious-metals","tag-rare-earth-metals","tag-roundups","tag-silver","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-tech-metals","tag-us-dollar"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116662921084674433","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}